REAL AND FICTITIOUS RISKS OF DISCONNECTION FROM SWIFT cepconsult.com March 29, 2021 Sergey Khestanov – Russian First of all, an alternative to SWIFT is the economist, associate professor System for Transfer of Financial Messages of ‘The Russian Presidential (STFM) - a Russian interbank system for Academy of National Economy transferring financial information and and Public Administration‘, making payments, operating on the basis of macroeconomic adviser to the general director of the Moscow the information and telecommunications investment company ‘Otkrytie system of the Central Bank of the Russian Broker’. Federation. This is the system with the largest coverage: the number of this system’s users in Russia is greater than the number of users of the SWIFT system. It is MOSCOW, March 22 - RIA noteworthy that STFM users are not only Novosti: “The Kremlin does not banks, but also some large corporations: rule out any potential threats of Gazprom Neft, Rosneft, Surgutneftegaz, sanctions, including the Tatneft, T Plus, TAIF-NK, Ak Bars Holding possibility of disconnecting Company and etc. Russia from SWIFT, President’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov STFM is still inferior to SWIFT in terms of told the reporters.” functionality. It prohibits the transfer of funds abroad, does not allow sending mass The scenario of disconnecting Russia from registers as part of one message, and has the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank rather stringent security requirements. At Financial Telecommunications) system itself the end of 2020, the share of the system in is unlikely, but preparations for it began domestic Russian traffic amounted to 20.6% back in 2014 and by now the so-called “Plan of the total number of transactions. At the B” has been prepared. But the plan will end of 2020, 23 foreign banks connected to solve the problem of settlements not for all the STFM from Armenia, Belarus, Germany, participants of foreign economic relations, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Switzerland. but only for large Russian companies. Part of the medium and almost all small businesses Today, it is STFM that is the main backup of are very likely to be deprived of the the SWIFT system for domestic payments opportunity to conduct foreign economic and payments to some, first of all, friendly activity, at least to enter into insignificant countries. contracts. But due to the small share of small and medium-sized businesses in the Along with STFM, there are also less Russian economy, and in foreign economic significant domestic alternatives of SWIFT, activity, in particular, this circumstance is of such as CyberFT from private company little concern to the Russian leadership. Cyberplat, Transit 2.0 from the National Settlement Depository, and Finline from To make payments within Russia, several Sberbank. payment systems have been created that duplicate the functionality of SWIFT, and Payment systems designed to serve citizens some also support the use of the SWIFT stand apart. The presence of these systems message format. Using the SWIFT message removes the risks associated with possible format makes it very easy to integrate such restrictions on the functionality of Visa and a payment system with existing banking Mastercard. software. This facilitates and greatly reduces The Bank of Russia Rapid Payments System the cost of implementing alternatives. is quite effective and timely, allowing citizens to transfer funds via an identifier Cepconsult s.r.o. Mliekarenska 8, 821 09 Bratislava, [email protected] page 1 of 3 Slovak Republic +421 919 480 943 REAL AND FICTITIOUS RISKS OF DISCONNECTION FROM SWIFT cepconsult.com March 29, 2021 (currently by phone number) of the them. This will reduce the speed of recipient, even if the parties to the transfer payments and increase the cost of the have accounts in different credit institutions. transaction, but it will retain almost all of The Bank of Russia Rapid Payments System the existing functionality. allows making instant payments 24/7 related to work, goods and services, The weakness of this scheme lies in the high including by means of using a QR code. risks of sanctions in relation to the Russian overseas banks themselves. If it comes to Payment system “Mir” is a national Russian disconnecting Russian banks from SWIFT, payment system in which payments are then Russian banks abroad are unlikely to made in rubles. Credit and debit cards with avoid sanctions. overdraft support are issued. The operator of the Mir payment system is JSC National Another approach might be to use a foreign Payment Card System. In terms of the correspondent bank. In this case, volume of payments, it occupies about information to the correspondent bank’s 17.5% of the Russian payment system address can be delivered by any alternative market (2019). Due to the sanctions to SWIFT systems (for example, telex). In imposed on Russia after the annexation of this case, it is preferable to transfer Crimea, the Mir payment system has a information in the format of SWIFT limited scope. However, in Russia and the messages. A condition for the effectiveness countries of the Eurasian Economic Union of such a scheme is that the foreign (EAEU), the system may well be applied. correspondent bank must be so significant that its lobbyists can ensure that there are Mir cards are not tied to PayPal and no sanctions for this bank. WebMoney, they cannot be used to purchase applications in the Google Play Store, it is In any case, the refusal to use the SWIFT impossible to make purchases in online system means the complication of stores of Amazon and Ebay, but at the same international settlements in the Russian time they can be used in AliExpress. Federation and an increase in their cost, as However, more than 90% of all purchases of well as a drop in the throughput of the Russians in foreign online stores are done Russian segment of international interbank through AliExpress. The disappearance of information. This cuts off all small and most access to Amazon and Ebay will be painful medium-sized Russian businesses from for some Russians, but it will not cause foreign economic activity. The market for the much discontent in the society - there will supply of imported goods to Russia, in the be too few disaffected. event of such a negative scenario, will change dramatically and the consolidation of The situation with replacement of the SWIFT importers will take place. Only a few major system for foreign payments is much more players will hold the fort. Similar processes complicated. The most likely is the use of will take place among exporters. From the Russian overseas banks (banks opened point of view of domestic Russian abroad and not subJect to sanctions). These consumers, this will most of all affect the are the banks that are not assigned the market of imported goods in Russia: their status of Russian residents, however owned assortment will decrease, and prices will by Russian nationals. Such banks are not rise. This is a classic market response formally subJect to sanctions and retain against the decline in competition. access to the SWIFT system. Accordingly, payments that are now passing through the If the sanctions apply to Russian banks SWIFT system can also be made through abroad, as well as to foreign correspondent banks of Russian banks, then trade with Cepconsult s.r.o. Mliekarenska 8, 821 09 Bratislava, [email protected] page 2 of 3 Slovak Republic +421 919 480 943 REAL AND FICTITIOUS RISKS OF DISCONNECTION FROM SWIFT cepconsult.com March 29, 2021 developed countries will be reduced to In summary, it should be noted that Russia barter. This will require Russian raw material is basically ready to disconnect from the exporters to set up import procurement SWIFT system. There will be no disaster. But units and, willy-nilly, become large importers the Russians will have to pay for this with a of consumer goods themselves. This will deterioration in the range of goods and an radically change the retail market and increase in prices for them. The stiffness of quickly form an oligopoly, since there are this negative implication will depend on the very few large suppliers of raw materials severity of future sanctions. abroad. Cepconsult s.r.o. Mliekarenska 8, 821 09 Bratislava, [email protected] page 3 of 3 Slovak Republic +421 919 480 943.